The arrival of Spotify in U.S. in July 2011 was well received. Celebrities like Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher and Trent Reznor have pushed the marketing and promotion in Twitter to a new level. This company cannot be luckier when some A-listers are openly acknowledging they were using the product even before the government gave it go ahead to begin to stream music in U.S. There is no other better way to promote or introduce a product in the market than the way Spotify had it in the month of July.
Spotify is a Swedish DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB, the service had approximately ten million users as of 15 September 2010; about 1 million of whom were paying members.The service is, as of July 2011, only available in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. (wikipedia)
This is the the latest from the Spotify buzz and online music sector in general:
- Spotify will get into Facebook soon and users can then share music and also help friends know what their friends are playing and listening to
- iTunes is lagging behind in this sector and is poised to be one of the failed projects under Steve Jobs in the last few years. Since its launch in Sept, Apple has not promoted it to users. It is losing steam and arguable a failed endeavor from Apple
- Justin Timberlake is revamping Myspace since he co-bought it from News Corp. He wants to return the site to its root – music
- Turntable.fm is helping people play DJ and then rate others based on their playing habits. This company needs a lot of work to compete in this sector very well.
- Though Spotify has the agreements with the major music label owners like Universal, Sony,EMI and Warmer – an indeed a sign of approval and confidence from those that matter, it is yet to have a strategy for most developing world. This means that anyone with a good tech skill can replicate their model for local artists and record labels.